


Angus McDonald and the Case of the Very Haunted House

by Raepocalypse



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Balance Arc, But they are not human, Gen, Limited Magic, Modern AU, all of the ships are background sorry, ghost au, rated t for language and spooky scary, so like the major character death is kind of a weird tag for this but all of the IPRE is dead so
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-01-16
Packaged: 2019-03-02 01:56:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13307970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raepocalypse/pseuds/Raepocalypse
Summary: When Angus moves in with his grandfather, he realizes that the house he's now living in is not just haunted - it is haunted byseveralghosts and no one is doing anything about it. With no one telling him what's going on, it's up to Angus to figure it out himself, even if they don't seem to be malicious. No case is unimportant for the World's Best Boy Detective.OrAngo McDango and the Spooky Scary IPRE





	1. 1. The House

**Author's Note:**

> Quick update about the chapter upload schedule at the end!!
> 
> So uh this is silly and cute but I'm pretty excited about it. Assuming it goes the way I'm planning, it's going to be about eight chapters, maybe nine. I don't usually post anything until it's done, but I'm trying something new and posting the chapters as I finish them. There's not set schedule, but I'm trying to shoot for about a chapter a week? (They might be short) Or it'll be more like bi-weekly and they'll be longer.  
> Sorry there are so many characters here, but I have a Mighty Need to make every single background character a Somebody
> 
> Also not beta'd I'm double sorry.

Angus had lived with his grandfather for less than twenty four hours and he already knew four things.

  1. There was something strange going on.   
2\. That something seemed to be paranormal.  
3\. The house staff were mostly ignoring it and it did not seem to be making it better. (Although it was hard to tell if it was making it worse. Not yet anyway.)  
4\. The spirit did not like Totino’s



He stared down at the pizza rolls scattered around the floor, which had previously been sitting dead middle on the table. Nothing could have knocked them over so quickly. It did not help matters that Angus couldn’t even  _ see _ anything that might have. 

He took a deep breath as his grandfather’s housekeeper sighed and started to clean them up. “Sorry, darlin’, I’ll toss these. We have some more in the freezer, anyw-”

There was a clang from the kitchen. 

She frowned, pinched the bridge of her nose. “For pete’s- Jenkins?” she called out. “Can you set the kitchen right?”

Another noise, this one louder, and a bag flew out of the kitchen. It slammed into the wall opposite the doorway, bursting open and raining frozen pizza bites across the hardwood floors. 

Ren sighed again and got to her feet. “ _ Okay _ . Well. Guess you’re not getting pizza bites. You want something else, Angus?”

He shook his head quickly. 

She studied him for a moment, then nodded as she turned to go get a broom. He stayed where he was in the dining room, uncomfortable and unsure. He didn’t really know his grandfather, and hadn’t really wanted to move here anyway. He was more than capable of taking care of himself, even had a pretty steady income with all the detective work he did, but the state said he wasn’t allowed to live on his own. His aunts had figured they should probably not let the state get them in trouble and had shipped him off as soon as it was convenient to the only relative that couldn’t really protest. 

Angus didn’t actually know his ,grandfather’s name, but he was terribly old and was bedridden and had enough money to staff his entire home. He had enough money to hire someone to watch over Angus, although they weren’t there yet. He had enough money to see to it that Angus would have whatever he wanted in his set of rooms. 

As the boy watched the housekeeper clean up the frozen pizza rolls on the floor, sitting stock still in his chair, he wondered if he had enough money to just… get rid of the ghosts? Move? Were they even ghosts? Was this something else? Was it something worse? 

Hands folded in his lap, thinking, a chill ran over him. He sat bolt upright and looked to Ren again. “Excuse me, ma’am? May I go to my room?”

She waved at him, giving her assent quietly as she cleaned. 

Abruptly, Angus hopped down from the chair and skirted around the mess and to the stairs. At the very least, he would get a good mystery out of this.

***

Angus McDonald was a very smart little boy. He didn’t need to be watched like a baby, but he tried to appreciate that the butler had volunteered to do it until they could find him a suitable “caretaker” full time. He didn’t need tutors, but he appreciated that they had been offered. He didn’t need to be told how to navigate the shelves in the (rather expansive, actually) library, but he appreciated that someone told him how.  

He actually did kind of need help getting the last book he wanted off the high shelf, but it had taken him almost half an hour to convince the butler that no, he did not someone to keep an eye on him. He knew how to use a library  _ and  _ how to take care of books, thank you very much. So now that he was alone and at peace, he was definitely  _ not _ asking the man to return so that he could get down a silly book. 

Sighing, he took a look at the fluffy armchair he had been ready to settle down in. Not a good idea to try and move that closer, probably. Not only was it heavy, but it would scratch the floors if he dragged it and he probably shouldn’t put his shoes on the upholstery anyway. He was pretty sure there was a desk somewhere in here, though. The butler had mentioned it, although he hadn’t invited him to use it. 

Straightening his glasses, he started to venture further in. It wasn’t as large as a public library, of course, with a very small fiction section and almost nothing that the butler deemed “suitable for a child.” It did, however, have a somewhat impressive section on paranormal activity and several expansive shelves dedicated to local history. Angus guessed this must have been left over from a time when someone was still trying to figure something out about the spirits that inhabited the place. It didn’t seem that anything had been done, though. Or that anything had necessarily been learned from those books. 

He hadn’t explored the whole library yet, of course, but the further back in the shelves he ventured, the chillier the place got. Odd, yes, but the house was old and he’d been told that the library didn’t see a lot of use anymore. Perhaps they simply didn’t heat this part of the house as much. 

The shelves he passed were just as immaculate as the ones up front, clearly cleaned regularly whether they were used or not. Toward the back, the algorithm Jenkins had explained seemed to just… fall apart. There was an entire series of shelves dedicated to cook books and recipes, alchemical science on the bottom rows. On closer inspection to the ones beside that, there was more science, but bled into magic. Deep arcane texts in languages Angus couldn’t read and couldn’t recognize. As he reached for a set of tomes that were oddly dusty compared to the rest of the room, something strange and unwelcome washed over him and he snatched his hand back. 

The set up of the library was a mystery for another day. So were the dusty books. 

Further in there was what seemed to be a whole section on botany, which bled into something on… mythology? Religion? Past that, there was a wall of manuals on engines, ships, boats, one beside that of atlases and maps, navigation books, almanacs. Nearby was one lonely shelf was sparsely populated with woodworking books, followed by a pair of shelves with books on self defense and lastly three shelves completely packed with literature about… dogs? 

The mismatched shelves had led him to the very back of the library, into a cold, dim corner. Set away from the wall was a long table, well used and a little more tattered than much of the furniture in the house, as far as Angus had seen. Seven chairs, not eight, sat around it, a few of them skewed at odd angles, not set apart from one another like someone had put them right after getting up. Three of them were bunched all together on one side. There was one at an end that looked like it would boost a person a little higher, and one just like it that was on the neighboring corner. The one beside that was set far away and at an angle, implying someone might have put their feet up on the table. 

The last chair was settled neater than the others at the end, just far enough away to seem like it hadn’t been pushed in, but it was straighter than all the others that were angled toward the head of the table opposite. Like they had been listening to whoever sat in that chair.

Four books sat on the table, with plain brown binding. Three of them were stacked up neatly. Gold numbers were stamped on them; 109, 110, 111. Nothing else was visible. The last book was open, the current pages half filled with careful, neat writing. 

Angus swallowed tightly and took a creeping step forward. A pen sat in the open crease of the book where the pages folded in together. The handwriting was neat and elegant, fine. The ink was still wet and shining. He would come back to read that over.

When he looked at the books again, he caught sight of the last of the odd shelves. Lining the back wall were more… journals. Just like the ones that he was seeing here. Plain brown binding. Stamped gold numbers on the spine. His heart hammered as he drifted closer, enough to see that they ended with the number 108. The beginning, however, began not with the number 1, but with three odd titles stamped the same way. 

_ Crew, Hunger, IPRE  _ and then the number 0, which led through the rest of the tomes. Unable to stop himself, Angus reached for one of the books, a random one at eye level to him, and jumped when he heard a scrape against the floor. Whipping around, he saw nothing at the table, no one around him. 

The chair at the end, however, had shifted just slightly, turned toward where he was standing. Angus’s skin prickled, feeling like there were eyes trained on him. He could no longer tell if the chill he felt was from the temperature or from the feeling he was getting. 

Angus was always a very brave little boy. He was a very smart little boy. But he was still just a very little boy. Mustering all of his courage, he turned away from the wall and marched himself right back to the front of the library without pausing to look at any more shelves, without pausing to see what anything else might mean, without even glancing at the open journal. As he passed the stack he had been amassing for himself before, he picked up the books and stuffed them under his arm as he shuffled his way out to the sitting room to read. The sitting room was bright, and sunny, and warm. It made him a little uncomfortable with all the baubles and nonsense trinkets. Still, he would prefer over the library now, even if the library was well stocked with both books and mysteries. 

He didn’t explain himself to the housekeeper or the butler or his grandfather’s caretaker as he passed them. None of them asked. (He was beginning to not like the butler much, with the smug look he had plastered on his face.) He simply sat down on the creaky sofa and grabbed the book off the top of the stack. 

He hesitated as he looked at the cover, frowning at it. He had been sure this was the one he was trying to reach before he ventured to look for a chair.

***

The house had an eclectic grouping of people working in it. Angus had been a lot of places and met a lot of people, so he wasn’t necessarily  _ surprised _ , but studying people was something he did often, something he was used to, and studying the people who worked in the house was as easy and natural as breathing for him. 

The butler was named Jenkins and Angus did not like him much. He was droopy and had several fancy bow ties, but he was dry and a little shrewd. Conniving. For someone who was terribly accommodating, he didn’t seem to care about the people around him for more than they could do for him unless he knew that he needed to serve them. Jenkins’ primary job was caring for the house. He directed the others in the place, took care of anything that didn’t get done, and ensured that every need was met for Angus’s grandfather, who he called “Mr. McDonald” only. His job centered largely around interacting with the other people in the house, but Angus quickly realized that people preferred to find ways around it. He also, however, had a large garden in the back, which he seemed to putter around in during his scheduled lunch times and before he left at the end of the day. 

The housekeeper was Ren and Angus thought he liked her the most. She did most of the cooking, which he quickly realized might have something to do with the fact that any time anyone else tried to cook, nothing in the kitchen seemed to work. (It was far worse for Jenkins and Angus had found out on the third day that he had an entire closet of clothes prepared in case anything “accidentally” spilled all over him.) 

Ren was smart and kind and very good at housekeeping. Her food was good, much better than the pizza rolls Angus didn’t see again after the first day. A few hours after that, she had asked him what he liked to eat and explained that she had just hoped to have something kid friendly and familiar for him when he got here. The backfire was an unintended consequence. The rest of the staff in the house, who were supposed to answer to Jenkins, largely went to her any time they had trouble or needed something. She dealt with Jenkins. Angus also noted that he seemed a little afraid of her. That seemed prudent to him. 

Angus’s grandfather was bedridden and had two caretakers that traded shifts. One was a sweet Halfling woman named Hurley, who knew a little about medicine but was in police training during most of the week. Her girlfriend came and went when she was there for long periods, and that seemed to irritate Jenkins more than anything else about her. 

The other caretaker was there more often than not, with a bedroom down the hall from Angus’s. Roswell was big and tall, with an accent to match Ren’s because they were from the same town. They had a bird in their room, a tiny red thing named Junebug, given to them by the man who had raised them when they left home. Ren had gotten them the job and they liked her a lot, but seemed to be bothered by the spirits around them more than anyone but Jenkins. (Jenkins was actively antagonized, so Angus didn’t blame him for not liking them much.)

Hurley and Roswell’s primary jobs both seemed to be to take care of Mr. McDonald and nothing else. They both had little wristbands that beeped when he needed help if they weren’t in the room, but they usually were. Angus wasn’t allowed to see his grandfather, so he didn’t know what exactly they did for him, but he assumed it had to do with medical equipment. 

A few more people were in and out during the week. There was a maid that came in twice a week to help Ren with large tasks and to make sure everything got dusted. There was a gardener who came in every other day to care for the grounds. There were two women in the booth at the driveway for security, although Angus didn’t see a reason to have so much of it. 

Lastly, on the fourth day, Ren introduced Angus to a tall man with slightly rumpled clothes. “Angus, this is Avi and he’s gonna be hangin’ out with you a lot now, okay? He’ll be here to give you a hand with whatever you need.”

Angus hesitated, putting his book down and pushing up his glasses to look between the two of them. First of all, he was a little offended, because he was ten and very mature for his age. He didn’t need a caretaker of his own like he was a baby. Secondly, he could already see the flask poking out of his new babysitter’s pocket and he wondered if he was going to be drinking on the job. Not that Angus cared, he didn’t need someone hovering around him, but it seemed to him that if he was going to be at work, he ought to be sober at least. 

“I don’t think I need a babysitter, ma’am,” he said, as gently as he could.

“Cool,” Avi replied, nodding. “I’m not a babysitter, my guy.” He offered a small, somewhat sleepy looking smile as he went on. “I used to work security in the house and I know the place pretty good. I promise I’m not gonna be breathing down your neck or anything, but Ren and Jenkins were thinkin’ it might be cool for you to have someone who’s always there to give you a hand if you need anything.”

He looked between the two of them again. “That sounds an awful lot like a babysitter to me,” Angus replied. 

Ren sighed, crouching beside his chair and leaning on the arm. “Angus, can I be straight with you?”

“Have you not been straight with me, ma’am?” 

She smiled, chuckling softly at that. “Well, not quite, I guess, but I think you’re a pretty smart kid. I think it’s somethin’ you already figured out. See, this house, it ain’t… It’s got some extra oddness to it, let’s call it that, huh?”

Angus nodded. “It’s haunted,” he confirmed. 

Her reaction was something that made him wish he had his notebook on him, because she sat back a little and laughed. It wasn’t an amused laugh, though, almost nervous. When he looked up at Avi, he caught the man looking out the door fo the sitting room, as if checking to see if someone was listening. 

“Now, we don’t call it that,” Ren told him. “This house has just got some special things about it that make it a little different is all. We don’t get a lot of kids here. It can be hard for folks sometimes, and I don’t… want it to be hard for you, sweetheart. And I don’t want anything to happen to you if it is hard.”

For a long moment, Angus studied her eyes. Sincere. Sure. He glanced at Avi and saw not a babysitter but… a protector? No, an alarm. Someone who used to work in the house and knew all the odd stories, knew their way around and knew what was going on, or at least knew a little of what was going on. If something happened to him, Avi was bigger and stronger, could pull him out and take him to get help. 

More importantly, he saw a person who was going to be essentially stuck with him. A person who knew a little more of this story and could serve as his eye witness. He saw someone he could interrogate. He felt a little bad about thinking it, but he also saw someone that was probably not as smart as he was. A little clever wording, or even a few drinks from the flask, and Angus was pretty sure he was going to tell him whatever he wanted to know about this house and all the “special” things that were happening in it. 

“Okay,” Angus said, nodding seriously. 

It was time to open the case. 

  
  



	2. 2. The Kitchen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Avi may not be great at spilling the beans, but Carrey and Killian dump them out. Angus starts his investigation of the kitchen. Things get a little more real than he was counting on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've had kind of a weird week and the pacing on this chapter is hopefully not as reflective of that as I feel like it is. I'm not sure I'm gonna have a chance to upload this coming weeks, so I'm getting this one out a little earlier than intended.

The weirdest thing about the house, really, was that after about a week, Angus was almost… used to it. He still thought about the chill of the library, or the food flying across the kitchen. He thought about how hot coffee would fall from Jenkins’ hands, even if both were securely holding onto it. He thought about how one evening he saw a stray dog dig holes in the garden, thinking it was a shame that the gardener wasn’t coming in for another day, but they were all mysteriously filled and the plants looking somehow fuller than ever by morning. 

He still thought about those things but they didn’t… seem that bad. They didn’t seem like the kind of ghosts he’d seen in movies, or even the ones he read about in the books that were in the library. Those were all accounts of wailing spirits or demonic scratches. Those spirits hurt people, kept them up at night, unsettled everyone in the house and left their mark and made the walls bleed. These ghosts didn’t seem interested in upsetting anyone but Jenkins, and Angus tried hard to blame them but he just couldn’t. 

Part of him didn’t want to delve too deep, worried that the he would… upset some kind of balance in the house, anger the spirits living there if he looked too deep into it. A small part, though. He was Angus McDonald, though. The world’s greatest detective, boy or not, and no mystery could really go unsolved, could it? He couldn’t just… leave it alone. 

The first thread to follow was the most obvious, the one that was presented to him on a platter. Avi. Avi knew about the house, Avi was tied to him, and most importantly, Avi didn’t think too much about what he said before he said it. Angus liked Avi, but he didn’t necessarily respect him. 

“Hey Mr. Avi?” he asked, a few days in, when he had taken all the notes he felt comfortable taking without pressing further into the mysteries around them. 

“I told you, kid, just Avi is fine,” he sighed, looking up from the computer sitting in his lap, doing whatever it was that he did for his real job remotely. 

Angus moved a little closer, closing his book. “Um… I was wondering… Why can’t anybody but Ms. Ren use the kitchen?”

“Ren’s the only one the kitchen likes,” he replied easily, as if that was an answer that made sense in any context. He turned back to the computer. 

Frowning a little, Angus pressed forward. “But why? Why does the… kitchen like her best? What’s in the kitchen that likes her? Why don’t we call them ghosts?”

Avi’s hands stilled on the keyboard and he looked up and around the room. They weren’t anywhere near the kitchen, set up in the sitting room that had been set aside for Angus as a place to “play.” In his case, it was more reading than anything. There weren’t as many cold spots in this room, but he’d noticed a time or two that there were wood shavings on the floor and he wondered what this room was before it was his. 

Carefully, he set the laptop aside and leaned his elbows on his knees, giving Angus a serious look. “Do you think you’d like it if someone just called you ‘human’ all the time?” he asked, voice soft in a way that spoke more to keeping his voice down than trying to be gentle. “I don’t think they like it. When I used to work here, Jenkins tried to get the place cleansed a couple times. I think that’s why the house doesn’t like him. Your granddad never really allowed it, but he couldn’t do much to stop him either, being stuck in bed.” He cleared his throat, looking at the door again like he might be able to check and see if anyone was coming, as though he would be able to see a ghost come into the room. “I don’t know if we should be talking about this, Angus. It may not be smart to do.”

The boy frowned, pushing his glasses up his nose. “But if there’s gh- if there’s something in the house and I live here, shouldn’t I know about it? Why can Ren use the kitchen and nobody else? Why can’t you use the kitchen?”

Avi shrugged, shaking his head. “Don’t know. I worked here before Ren and left just a little after she came. It was a struggle all the time to get food out before that, but then she just went right in one day and everything went just fine. I’d tell you to ask her, but she doesn’t like talking about it. Nobody likes talking about it.”

Angus was figuring that out. It was pretty clear that  _ nobody _ liked talking about it, and it was more than a little infuriating. “Well… What about the library? What are all those books in the back?”

“What books in the back?”

“The one with the gold letters and the brown binding,” Angus sighed, giving him the most unimpressed look. “Toward the back of the library, there’s a whole wall of books with just numbers on them, and this big table, and a whole bunch of books on all these weird subjects that are put together really… strangely.”

For a moment, Avi just blinked at him, brow furrowed, head cocked slightly. “I dunno, Angus. I never went that far into the library. We can… go check it out if you want? Mr. McDonald used to collect a lot of books and I think he still does some bidding on antiques and rare books remotely. Maybe it’s just stuff that hasn’t been sorted yet?”

That was not the case, but Angus didn’t blame Avi for not getting it. He hadn’t seen them. He didn’t know that there was something - some _ one _ who was writing those books. He would just have to go find out what was in them. 

“We can go see later,” he finally said, although he wasn’t sure they would get to it today. He had set his sights on the kitchen first, and that was the first mystery to solve. “I want to see how Caleb Cleveland gets out of this one first.”

***

The house was dark when Angus decided it was time to do his first bout of investigation. He had waited patiently, taking a nap in the middle of the day and then very carefully convincing Avi to let him “try” some coffee so he could stay up. As usual, Avi left just after dinner, and Roswell helped put him to bed. (He didn’t need to be put to bed, but he didn’t mind it when Roswell did it. They really just followed him to his room and asked if he needed anything, then turned out the light.) An hour later, Ren came to check on him for the night and then the house went down into silence. 

Angus waited another hour, listening to the creaks and groans and soft clicks of the old house around him, then carefully got up and out of bed. He slipped on his glasses, tucked his feet into slippers, and started to shuffle out. The kitchen was the perfect place for him to check out at night. If anyone asked what he was doing, he would be able to just tell them that he needed a glass of water. 

The stairs creaked a little as he padded down, hand on the rail, and he didn’t miss that he passed through not one, but two cold spots on the way down. He shivered slightly and wished he’d wrapped his blanket around his shoulders before he started this. 

So far into his stay, Angus had not gone into the kitchen for more than a few minutes at a time. He was always shuffled out quickly, brought snacks or water or juice or whatever it was out to the dining room or sitting room or wherever. Ren told him it wasn’t his job. Avi told him it could be dangerous for little boys in the kitchen Jenkins told him to stay where he was told. Hurley had only caught him in the kitchen one time and  _ she _ had shown him how to climb the shelves safely to get to the mugs because she was about the same height as he was. Tonight, though, they were all asleep or gone and it was just him and the kitchen. 

As he pushed open the door, he wondered if he should call out a greeting. Was that polite? Did he need to greet them? Or would that wake up Ren down the hall?

The chill passed over him again and lingered this time, making him curl up a little. “Hello?” he called cautiously, looking around to see if the dark would reveal anything. The moonlight was streaking in through the window above the sink and there was a tiny light on the fridge that lit the way, but nothing moved in the dark. “Hello, Mr. Kitchen?” he tried again, moving in a little further and letting the swinging door close behind him. “Or, uh, Ms. Kitchen?”

Somewhere near the pantry, he thought he heard a bright laugh, but it was there and gone so quickly he couldn’t be sure. The chill was still wrapped around him, clinging to his skin and making goosebumps rise on his arms, the hair stand on the back of his neck. 

Trying to tamp down the shudder of unease, he made his way over to the cabinet where the cups were kept, starting to try and climb the way Hurley had shown him. As he started to get up onto the counter, though, a sound rang through the kitchen like a hand slamming down on the counter, rattling the whole thing and making him jump back. 

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I just wanted some water!” Angus said quickly, shuffling backwards away from the counter. His heart was beating out of his chest, his fingertip and nose starting to go numb with the chill. For a moment, he didn’t know what to do, maybe run off, but he couldn’t chicken out now. He needed to see how far he could push it. Besides, Ren was just down the hall. She would come if he yelled. Right?

“Can- Can I get… Can I get a glass down, please?” His voice was small, worried, afraid. He didn’t have to fake that. He was starting to shake, but he was determined. These ghosts weren’t all bad, were they? They would let him get a glass down. It was only water, after all. 

Seconds passed. Angus counted them ticking by on the big clock in the foyer. It felt like an eternity between each one, but it helped to remind him that time was real and he hadn’t been standing there in his pajamas for an hour. 

Then a warmth washed over him, like a wave of sunshine. It started out pleasant, growing quickly into almost-too-hot territory. He took in a sharp breath, looking around. There were no vents here, nothing to say that there was something that could create a draft of warm air, but instantly the chill was gone. He glanced around, frowning at the empty room, and when he turned back to the counter, a glass sat on it. If he hadn’t just been trying to climb up there, he might have thought that it had been there all along, that someone had left it out earlier in the day. There had been no sound of a cabinet opening and closing, no noise from the glass being settled on the counter. One moment there was nothing, and the next, it was there. 

Swallowing hard through the dry mouth he had suddenly developed, Angus darted forward and grabbed the cup, moving to the little dispenser on the fridge and getting water out. He quickly took a long drink, finding he actually did need it now, and then deposited the glass in the sink and headed for the door. 

When he reached it, he stopped, turned back to look into the dark again. “Thank you,” he said softly, wondering if anyone was there to hear him. 

Before the door swung closed behind him again, he heard, clear as day, a voice call out to him “You’re welcome, pumpkin.”

Angus hurried back to his room and spent most of the rest of the night scribbling down notes in his journal. 

***

No one mentioned the single glass in the sink the next morning. No one mentioned the slam that had come from the kitchen in the night. Avi offered to go with Angus into the back of the library again that day to see if there was anything weird back there, but he shook his head quickly, still shaken from his ordeal. He probably should have started with the library, but he had already begun unpacking the can of worms that was the kitchen and he wasn’t ready for two at a time right now. 

“I can’t stay all day today, Angus,” Avi had told him just after lunch. “I’ve got a doctor’s appointment. You think you’ll be okay on your own today?”

“I’ll be fine,” he assured him, nodding. “I  _ told _ you guys I would be fine.”

“Well, if you need anything,” Avi pressed on anyway. “Ren’s gonna be around, and Jenkins is in his office working on some stuff, and Carrey and Killian are in the security booth by the gate. Ros is gonna be busy today, probably, but if you need them, I bet they’ll make time for you too, okay?”

Angus nodded dutifully, although he didn’t need this many people keeping an eye on him and he really didn’t want it either. Avi left shortly after that and Angus was left to his own devices. 

His first thought was to try the kitchen again, but Ren was in and out of the kitchen most of the day every day, so that was out. It was lovely and sunny, though, warm enough to spend some time outside, and Angus hadn’t really gotten a chance to meet the women who sat at the guard booth, so he tucked himself into his jacket and shoes and headed that way. 

Carrey was a small woman, dragonborn, while Killian was a hulking half-orc. Angus didn’t know a lot about either, race, but he didn’t see them often and knew just enough to know that they often had a hard time finding work in human and elf communities. He’d heard his aunt call them savage, call them disgusting, call them crude. He knew that wasn’t true, because he wasn’t an idiot, and he knew that humans could be just as bad if not worse. He was, after all, a detective. 

At the guard booth, he knocked gently and listened to what was happening inside. There was a fair amount if giggling going on in there, for a pair of people who had such a serious job. The door opened and Carrey poked her head out, smiling down at him brilliantly. 

“Angus!” she greeted, moving aside to let him in. “Hey, kiddo. What’re you doing all the way down here? Bored?”

“A little,” he agreed, taking the seat Killian pushed out for him. “Avi left and Ren is busy. And I like the library, but it’s kind of…”

“Creepy,” Killian agreed sagely. She nodded and put her cards down on the table. “We don’t go up to the house much, but when we used to work up there? Gives me the heebie jeebies.”

“I don’t like the basement, Carrey said, taking her own seat and starting to gather the cards without waiting to see if Killian wanted to keep playing. “Something weird happened down there, I think.”

“We have a basement?” Angus asked, a little thrown by that. No one had mentioned the basement to him. Maybe they just didn’t want him down there. “What happened in the basement?”

“What happened anywhere in the house?” Killian shrugged. “I mean, obviously, the kitchen is, like, the loudest, but it’s not like  _ anywhere _ in the house is normal.”

Angus very suddenly regretted not coming here first thing on his first day. Why were they the only ones who talked about this? Why didn’t anyone else? Why couldn’t he think of anything to ask them all of a sudden?

“You wanna play go fish?” Carrey asked, dealing out the cards already. 

“Um. Sure. What- What other rooms in the house do you think are weird?” It was the only thing that came to mind, the only question he could think to ask now that he was finally,  _ finally _ getting information a little more easily. 

“Well, the attic for sure,” Killian said flippantly. “But attics and basements are always like that, right? And then the library.”

“We said the library,” Carrey reminded her, picking her cards up as she finished dealing. “And the kitchen. The garden’s not a room, but it’s got some really special funk to it.”

“Jenkins’ garden?” Angus asked, laying down a pair of threes and trying to keep all this information in his head. It was coming so quickly, so casually, after what felt like weeks of trying to squeeze water from a rock. 

Killian shook her head, laying down two pairs and then sitting back. “Oh, no. Nobody touches that. The other garden, the one on the west side of the house? It’s got all the vines and stuff? That one. That one is weird.”

“The dining room too. Babe, you got any twos?” Killian passed a card over and Carrey laid the pair down. “And the workshop room. Angus, fours?”

“Workshop room?” he asked, forgetting his cards completely. 

She nodded, waiting a moment. “On the second floor? This table used to be in there, and the chairs, but they had to move it to make room for - well, I guess it’s a sitting room now. Fours?”

“Go fish,” Angus said a little vaguely. That was  _ his _ sitting room. That was the room that he spent his afternoons with Avi in, the one where he sat and read in the big cushy chair. The one with all the intricately carved furniture, the bookshelf with a bunch of carved animals on it, the shavings that seemed to appear from nowhere on the hardwood floors. He could feel the color drain from his face. “Is- Is that room haunted too?” he asked. 

Carrey and Killian went quiet for a moment, giving him a strange look before Killian put her cards down. “Hey, hey. Listen. Angus? There’s nothing in that house that’s gonna hurt you.”

He frowned, gripping the cards a little too tightly until Carrey tugged them from his hands. “Hey, kiddo. We didn’t mean to scare you. Sorry.”

“I’m not- I’m not scared. I just didn’t… realize…” He cleared his throat, trying to reach for his cards again and frowning when they were pulled further away. 

“Listen,” Killian said again, squeezing his shoulder gently. “I don’t know what anybody’s been telling you over there, but we’ve been in this place longer than anybody and we know. There’s nothing in that house that would hurt you. Okay?”

Angus looked at the both of them, the most honest pair of people so far, the only ones who had told him  _ anything _ and therefore the only people who had been able to give him a real reassurance. “But… why do they think it might be dangerous then?”

Carrey snorted, shaking her head. “Trust me. Just because someone thinks something is dangerous, doesn’t mean it _ is _ . Take it from us, huh?” She smiled at him, a little hopefully, and he realized that, yeah. Everyone in the house seemed to think the place was dangerous, but Angus’s aunts thought half orcs and dragonborn were dangerous too. Here they were, though, playing cards with him and offering him the only real comfort he’d gotten since he moved in. 

“Okay,” he nodded. “But… if they aren’t ghosts, then what are they?”

Carrey shrugged, offering him his cards again and sitting back. “Dunno. But if you ever need help finding out, let us know. It’s probably a matter of security, right?” She winked at him and earned a smile in return. 

“Killian?” he asked, turning to her. “Do you have any Jacks?”

When they finished playing Go Fish, the game turned to poker, which Angus turned out to be very bad at, then to gin rummy, which he was very good at. Then, however many games later, the sun was starting to go down and Killian hefted Angus up onto her shoulders for the walk back to the house while Carrey stayed behind. 

“Are you scared of the house, Angus?” she asked, trudging up the walk to the front door. 

He paused, thinking seriously about that question . “Not… all the time. Sometimes. When things fly across the room or when there’s loud noises or when it gets really cold.”

Killian was quiet for a moment, then stopped, pulling him down off of her shoulders easily and planting his feet on the ground. She knelt down, getting to eye level with him. “I want to tell you a secret, okay? You can’t tell anybody else in the house.”

Angus paused, frowning a little, but he nodded anyway. If there was a secret, he wanted to know it. He could unpack it all by himself if he had to. 

“Carrey and I saw one of them one day. Clear as day, solid as you or me. A big guy, with bushy sideburns.” She paused, pressing her lips together. “It was a long time ago, before the grounds were expanded. We were both working in the house back then, helping with the antiques and stuff, but we were in the workshop - it’s your sitting room now. The guy was just… whittling. He was just carving this piece of wood and nothing else. We didn’t think he saw us, but then he looked up and he smiled and then he was gone.”

“Were there wood shavings on the ground when he left?” Angus asked, voice a whisper. 

Killian nodded, hands moving to his shoulders. “But then later, there was a duck on the table too. This… really nice looking wooden duck, and it was just… I really love ducks and it was so cute and I love it. I took it home and it was really… Angus, sometimes, there are times to be afraid, but this house? I don’t think there’s anything to be afraid of in this house, and if there was, I  _ promise _ . I wouldn’t send you back in there on your own. Okay?” She waited for him to nod, then pulled him into a hug. “It’s our job to protect this place, and you’re part of it now. Carrey and I will protect you.”

Angus nodded again and hugged her tightly, then went inside. 

He had learned a lot that day, but his courage was bolstered too. He wasn’t as afraid. Maybe the… whatevers that were in the house weren’t so bad. Maybe they were alright. 

That night, he stayed up again, pretending to be asleep when Ren came to check on him and counting to one thousand twice before he got up again. This time, he wrapped his blanket around his shoulders before he tucked his feet into his slippers and headed downstairs. 

The workshop-turned-sitting-room would be tomorrow’s project. Right now, there was still the kitchen to worry about. 

He pushed the door open slowly, peeking inside and looking around. It was just as still as the day before, but not quite as dark. There was a little glowing flame in the stove, a tiny circle under a small pot that was warming something. 

It wasn’t like Ren to leave anything on. It wasn’t like her to leave anything out. Angus crept closer to peer at the pan and caught a whiff of something sweet and rich. Chocolate. 

His hand reached out for the handle and another hand materialized from nothing to slap his away. “Not ready yet, boychik,” a man’s voice said. 

Angus jerked back, looking up at a tall elf, clad in a brightly colored apron and a pointed had at a jaunty angle. “Wha?” he managed, but felt like he’d done very well under the circumstances. 

“Go sit down. You like hot chocolate, don’t you?” He was silent for a moment, baffled,  _ terrified _ , until the man raised a brow and he nodded quickly. “Excellent. Then go sit your ass down and I’ll bring it when it’s ready, bubulah. You gotta get some sleep, hm?”

Angus took a step back, shocked, heading for the dining room. He turned, pushed the door, and was met with another elf, one who looked almost exactly like the one at the stove. “Not in here, little man,” she said, twirling a finger. “You get the spot of honor tonight.” Two cold,  _ cold _ hands landed on his shoulders and spun him around and herded him toward the little two-seat table in the kitchen. “You get to sit with  _ us _ tonight.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please come yell at me about TAZ on the twitters! @dragonosaurus


	3. 3. The Dining Room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angus meets the twins. Avi decides he hasn't had a chance to be a child. Soccer is played. No one spends much time in the dining room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So first of all I've never written anything with such resounding support?? You're all??? Amazing and I adore you all??? Second, I'm so sorry I haven't been able to reply to every comment the way I want to but I read every single one and adore and cherish them. (And if you see something that's like glaringly wrong, please let me know!! Someone caught in the last chapter that I misspelled boychik and I'm really relieved I had a chance to fix it!!)
> 
> Uh... This chapter got away from me? More in the fact that it ended up being a bunch of very separate scenes in a way I didn't anticipate. I also kept worrying it wasn't long enough until it was longer than I realized. Dat writer life I guess. Hope yall enjoy it.

“You get the spot of honor tonight,” the elf said, placing both ice cold hands on Angus’s shoulders and spinning him around. He was marched to the little table thst was set to the side of in kitchen and prodded into one of the chairs. “You get to sit with  _ us _ tonight.”

Angus scrambled into the chair and stared up at her with wide eyes, trying to lock every bit of this to memory even when his mind was racing away from him. “I- I- I’m not supposed to sit at this table. Ms. Ren and Jenkins said so.”

“ _ Ugh _ ,” the elf at the stove said. “Jankins can fuckin’ get bent, Agnes, and Ren can only use the kitchen because she knows who it belongs to.”

The female elf took the seat across from him and leaned an elbow on the table, grinning. “You can sit at the table if we say so. It’s  _ our _ table.”

For several long seconds, Angus couldn’t think of anything to say, could barely breathe. The two elves were… wildly fashionable, but it was somehow both dated and modern. The one by the stove had on killer heels, fitted slacks, and a blousy shirt with his pointed hat. The one at the table wore skin tight pants and a crop top, sunglasses on top of her head and bangles cluttering both arms. Most importantly, they were both flickering between transparent and solid and, every few seconds, simply not there. Like a light bulb not fully screwed in. Dim, full power, dim, full power, dim, off, dim, full power...

“My name is Angus,” he finally said, clutching the blanket tighter. 

The girl laughed and he thought he recognized that sound, the bright laugh from the night before. “Nice to meet you, little man. You should feel very honored. The Twin Wonders don’t say hi to just anybody. You can call me Lup. That’s Taako, by the stove.”

Taako raised a hand to wave as he started pouring hot chocolate into a mug and turning the stove off. 

Angus didn’t find his words again until the mug was sitting in front of him, Taako looking at him expectantly and slowly raising a brow. “Why are you… Why me?”

The twins looked at one another, having some kind of silent conversation. Finally, Lup slid over to the edge of her chair, making barely enough room for Taako to perch beside her. “You seem like a smart kiddo, pumpkin. You’ll figure this place out one way or another. Might as well give you a leg up on our own terms.”

That was a lie. Or, sort of a lie. Or, at least the moment he heard it, Angus knew there was something in those words that just wasn’t… quite true. Or perhaps something that was being withheld. He wasn’t positive how he knew it, but he  _ knew _ . He was smart, though, and he was definitely going to figure this place out one way or another. They were right about that.

Taako reached forward, flickering out of existence for just a moment as he turned the handle of the cup toward Angus. It was terribly surreal. “Anyway, you aren’t coming to the kitchen at night for a drink. Mr. and Ms. Kitchen are the ones you’re here to see.”

“And why wouldn’t you?” Lup continued, grinning still. “We’re pretty amazing. Drink your cocoa before it goes cocold, babe.”

“That was gross,” Taako chastised instantly. “Never say that again. I hate you.”

She beamed at him, nudging his hip with her own and nearly ousting him from the chair. “You love me.”

“You’re spending too much time with Bluejeans and I’m cancelling you as my sister,” he sniffed, nudging her back and she ended up sliding halfway  _ into _ the wall.

Lup snorted. “You can’t cancel me, you’re stuck with me, dingus.”

“We’re trying to make an  _ impression _ here, doofus, gods, can you focus?”

In an attempt to bring the both of them back to focus, Angus finally picked up the mug of hot chocolate and took a sip. At least, he meant to take a sip. The whipped cream on top meant he had to tilt his head back a little further to get the drink and then it was… it was  _ good _ . It was really good. His eyes widened as he pulled back, swallowing and licking his lips. Another drink, and then another and he looked up at the twins smiling faces. 

“Sir, this is.. This is  _ so good _ . Oh my gosh, sir, this is the best hot chocolate  _ ever _ .” And if there was one thing Angus McDonald knew, it was hot chocolate. (There were many things Angus McDonald knew, actually, he was the world’s greatest detective.)

Taako flipped his hair over his shoulder and tossed him a smirk. “Natch. Ol’ Taako is the best chef in the world.”

“You’ve got a little something on your face, there, pumpkin,” Lup added, gesturing to her lip. 

Angus quickly wiped away the whipped cream mustache and pushed his glasses up. “Um… If- if you don’t mind me asking, sir and ma’am, how… howcome you’re all in this house?”

Lup and Taako looked at one another again, sharing another private conversation. It seemed almost telepathic, the way they didn’t seem to need to speak, but Angus had a gut feeling that it was more to do with being twins, being together, with knowing one another so inside and out that they didn’t need words to talk.

“This is where all our things are,” Lup said finally, giving a graceful shrug. 

Angus frowned. That wasn’t a real answer. Was it?

“Besides, where else would we go? We’ve been here since before anyone else in the house. Why should we have to leave to make way for more people?” Taako continued, inspecting his nails. 

He frowned further. That wasn’t any better at all. “But… you’re dead. Isn’t there somewhere people who are dead are supposed to go?”

They looked up slowly, brows raising. For a moment, fear overtook him and he remembered that calling someone dead was probably the same as calling them a ghost. His hands gripped the cup so tight his knuckles turned white with the force of it. His breath came faster. He curled down in the chair. Was the chill around him real or imagined? Was this where the throwing things started up again, like it always did for Jenkins?

“Who says we’re dead at all?” one of them asked, but Angus couldn’t tell who it was with his face buried in the cup and the blood rushing in his ears. 

“Life and death is a thinner line than you might think it is,” they continued, or was it the other one speaking now?

“Agnes,” they said sharply. “Look at me.” 

Angus’s head popped up and he stared at the twins. They were flickering rapidly now, out of sync with one another and entirely transparent at their most visible. “You’re a smart boy, Agnes. You can figure it out.”

“The world’s greatest detective, right?”

The mug in his hands was cold now, and Angus didn’t know how long he’d been shivering by the time he realized he was cold too. “How did you know that?” he asked, a little breathless. 

There was a snap, like a cord breaking, and then both twins were gone. 

After such a loud noise, the silence in the kitchen was almost painful. After their presence filling the room, it felt empty. After sitting with the pair of them for only a few moments, Angus felt incredibly alone. He let out a shuddering breath, looking down at his chilly cocoa again and shivering under the blanket. He couldn’t drink that now. It was cold, frigid, a little thicker than it should be now that it wasn’t hot anymore. With shaking fingers, he lifted it anyway and tried to take a drink. Not great.

Like the first night, though, a draft blew over him again, warm at first and then almost-too-hot. Then too hot. Then  _ way too hot _ . Angus frowned, sitting up, starting to put the cup down, but the draft cut off instantly. 

His eyes fell to the cocoa. It was steaming in his mug again. 

***

For the second time, Angus didn’t really sleep. He was up a good portion of the night, scribbling down in his journal and trying to remember every single thing, every moment from the night’s tryst into the kitchen. When morning came, Ren gently woke him up and he shuffled to the dining room with his eyes barely open. 

As soon as he entered, the door to the kitchen slammed open to startle them both.

“What on Earth,” Ren mumbled under her breath, moving to the kitchen and giving the swinging door a tug. It shouldn’t have been able to stick open like that. There was nothing there to hold the door open, nothing there for it to catch on. “Now come on,” she said, taking the most stern tone she could and giving the door a Look. Angus had yet to be on the receiving end of one of those, but Avi said he had and he didn’t want to take a turn.

The door released, then snapped open again with a bang that made them both jump. 

“You stop that, now,” Ren said sharply, slamming a hand on the door. “There is a little boy in here and you are gonna scare him. That what you want?” Another moment of silence before a scraping sound drifted out from the kitchen. Ren’s brows lifted, her lips forming a tight line. Finally, she huffed out an irritated breath and then came back to the dining room table. “Come on, Angus. This house is  _ old _ and  _ ornery _ . Come sit with me in the kitchen, why don’t you?” She scooped his plate up and cast a dirty look at the door again, standing there in case it was let go and waiting for him. 

He sat, sleepy and confused at the table, for several long moments. His brain was still trying to get started, still trying to kick him into gear to start the day. Finally, he slid out of his chair and shuffled past her into the kitchen. Ren settled the plate down in front of him and gave his shoulder a soft pat before she headed off to get started on the day. 

Angus’s mind was reeling too much to eat, however. A lot had happened, it seemed to him, in a very short amount of time. The cocoa, the twins, sitting now at the table he wasn’t allowed to touch before. It took him a few minutes to process, but eventually, he started to eat, munching at his eggs and toast before he stopped again. 

“Ms. Ren?”

“Hm?” she asked, leaning on the counter and going over a sheet of paper. 

“Do you know Taako and Lup?”

Ren froze on the spot, although the tension might be missed by someone less observant than Angus McDonald. She looked up, studying him for a moment and then moving closer to the table. Carefully, she took a seat across from him. “Where did you hear those names, Angus?” she asked softly.

He studied her back, trying to decide if he was about to be in trouble or not. All he could see on her face was concern, no traces of anger, but there was a little confusion in her voice. Almost hope in her eyes. 

He cleared his throat, pushed his glasses up and gave her his most serious look. (It might have been dampened by bed head and fuzzy slippers, but it was a pretty good look. He’d been working on it.) “So you know them?”

A smile twitched up on her lips and she leaned forward a little. “I’m the only one who can use the kitchen, ain’t I?”

Angus folded his hands, giving the stove a considering look. “I bet I could use the kitchen too.”

A moment of thought, of study. “You know what? I bet you could. Maybe somebody’ll teach you to cook in this kitchen one day. But you ain’t answered me. Where’d you hear those names? You been snoopin’ around the house?”

He pressed his lips together, chewing on one of them thoughtfully. “No one told me I can’t,” he tried. “Jenkins let me go into the library by myself a while ago.”

Ren nodded, drumming her fingers on the table. “You’re not in trouble, you know. This house… it’s probably gonna be yours one day, you know? Heaven knows he ain’t gonna leave it to your aunts. Nothin’ stoppin’ you from learning everything you can. I do know Taako and Lup, and I expect you’ve got some questions about ‘em both, but… I don’t think I’ll be able to answer ‘em.”

He quirked his head curiously, a frown pulling at his lips. “Howcome?”

There was another pause, another period of unsure study. “There’s some stuff they can’t… really talk about. There’s lots of stuff I don’t really know, and any time I ask questions that push too far they…”

“Vanish?” he supplied.

Ren nodded, but seemed unsure. “But you know what? I hear you’re pretty smart. I’ll bet you got more in your little notebook than any one of us knows yet anyhow. That don’t mean you oughtta go breakin’ rules that’s been set, but I get the feelin’ you’re gonna do what you gotta do to figure things out.” At the contrite look that came over Angus’s face, she turned him a wry smile. “Just don’t go gettin’ in trouble. Avi’s the one lookin’ after you, but I’m the one who’s gonna have to deal with your granddaddy if something happens to you.”

Angus nodded, noting that away. Ren answered to his grandfather and his grandfather made the rules. That meant maybe not asking Ren for help. That was okay, though. Killian and Carrey had already said they would help him and Avi would probably give him a hand without a second thought. Maybe he could talk to Roswell and Hurley and Sloane too. (He wouldn’t ask Jenkins. Not unless his life depended on it. There was something off about him.)

“I understand, Ms. Ren. You won’t have to worry about anything.” 

Not if she never found out about it, at least.

***

Avi spent the day with him again, and Angus was starting to wonder what on earth Avi’s real job could possibly be if he was able to do that and babysit a ten year old all day. Not that there was much involved in keeping an eye on Angus. For the most part, he occupied himself, a habit leftover from when he was with his aunts and was left to his own devices anyway. He read and studied or tried to take notes on the general goings on around the house. 

About the fourth book in, Avi paused and watched him for a few long seconds. “Hey, you, uh- Aren’t you… bored of that yet?”

Angus looked up, then glanced at the book in his hands. “I- No? Not really. I mean, I think it’s really interesting. The local history of the-”

“No,” Avi interrupted, leaning forward. “I mean, like, you’re a kid. Shouldn’t you be… running around outside or something? I mean, I’m not complaining. You can do whatever you want until you go back to school, but like… You’re a kid, you know? You should get to be a kid.”

For a moment, Angus blinked blankly at Avi, unsure of this. “I’m not going back to school,” he said finally. “I finished.”

“What?”

“Well- I have a couple of credits left, I think, but my aunts didn’t let me get more tutors when I moved in with them.”

Avi stared at him for another moment, frowning slightly. Slowly, he closed his computer and pushed it to the side. “Angus. You’re, like, eight.”

He frowned, slowly closing his book and pushing it aside. “I am ten.”

The man sighed. “You know what I mean. You’re a kid. There’s twelve years of school.” Angus nodded. “You’d have to- Even if you’ve only got a few years left, how can you be that close?”

“My parents wanted me to get through school. They got me tutors so I could finish early.” It had been a long time since he had to think about it, really. The loss of his parents still hurt sometimes, but it was getting easier. “I would have finished this year, but my aunts didn’t want to get my tutors, so I’m just doing a self-study now. Ren says I could get someone, but I don’t really want to do that right now.”

Avi blinked at him, baffled. “Angus, you’re ten.” He nodded. “Don’t you want to… I don’t know, don’t you want to play? Make friends? Have other kids around?”

For a few moments, the boy didn’t answer, unsure. “I mean… yeah, but… I used to go to the playground and those kids didn’t really like me? I’m not… sure that would be any different here…”

There was another loaded silence, and then Avi slammed his hands on the table, getting to his feet. “Come on. We’re going to the park. Get your coat.”

Angus didn’t move until Avi was putting his computer away and gesturing at him. “What are we going to do at the park, sir?”

Avi shrugged, heading for the door of the sitting room. “We’ll figure something out. I heard somewhere that kids need sunshine and… exercise or whatever. Come on. I’ll buy you a churro.”

That was how they ended up at the park. Not that Angus minded the park, it was just… he didn’t know anyone here, and grown ups were a lot easier to talk to sometimes than kids his own age. And, if he was being honest, making friends with the kids here was almost more frightening than the house had been the first few days. 

“Well,” Avi started, looking around the place like he didn’t know what to do either. “There’s the playground. Go, you know… play.”

Angus looked up at him accusingly. “Play?”

“Yeah.” He fished the flask out of his pocket and ignored the sigh from Angus, or maybe didn’t even notice it. “You know. Play. Do… kid stuff.” He looked down at Angus, then sighed in return and crouched down beside him. One hand fell to his shoulder and squeezed softly. “Look, I’m not trying to be a di- a jerk here, Angus. I just don’t… think it’s really cool that you can’t be a kid? You should be able to have friends and stuff. You should be able to play. Maybe you don’t want to play, I dunno, but I’m not gonna be the guy who just sat back and didn’t let you get to be a kid.”

A week ago, Angus remembered thinking that he liked Avi, but he didn’t really respect him. He still thought he was smarter than Avi, was pretty sure of it, in fact. Now though, with a hand on his shoulder and the man looking him seriously in the eyes even right after drinking in public, he thought that maybe Avi respected  _ him _ . If he could respect him, then Angus figured that he should probably make it a point to respect him right back. 

“Okay,” he replied, nodding. After a moment where he wasn’t sure he  _ should _ do it, Angus darted forward and flung his arms around the man. Avi wrapped his arms around him right back and gave him a tight squeeze. 

“I think those kids over there are playing soccer,” he offered. 

Angus pulled away and looked to the kids kicking a ball around in the field. It didn’t look like they were necessarily following any real rules, but he nodded firmly and went to join them. As soon as he got close enough, he heard a boy shout out to him and wave for him to join them. No hesitation. No unsureness. He told Angus the “rules” which didn’t quite match up with what Angus knew about soccer, and introduced himself. They were off by one person. Did he want to join a team? 

Yeah. He could join a team. 

When the game finished, Angus returned to where Avi sat on a bench, joined now by a tall half elf man with a guitar in his lap. He was flushed and a little sweaty, breathless in the cold, and with grass stains on his knees, but he was grinning brightly. 

“Good time?” Avi asked. 

Angus nodded so hard his glasses almost flew off his face. “I scored a goal!”

“I saw! Wanna stop somewhere on the way home? I could use a coffee and you could probably use something warm too. Not coffee, though. Ren says you were up all night the other day.”

_ Ren is a tattletale _ , Angus thought before he could stop himself, which was odd for a number of reasons. He’d never done anything that needed to be told on. (Not that anyone had ever found out, at least.) More to the point, though, Ren was the one he thought would get told, not who would be telling on him to Avi, of all people. 

“I can get hot chocolate at home,” he said, fixing his hat, which had been given back to Avi halfway through the match when he realized he couldn’t keep it on. “Hi, sir! I’m Angus McDonald.”

“Hi,” the other man said. His voice sounded oddly sad, although there was a little smile on his face. “Johann. You’re Avi’s new friend, huh? He was telling me you’re, like, super smart.”

Angus slid a look at Avi, who shot him a thumbs up. “The world’s greatest boy detective, right?” the man asked. “That’s why you read the Caleb Cleveland novels.”

When had he told him that? Was that how Taako and Lup knew? Or had they somehow told him? “I don’t think you have to use the qualifier of ‘boy,’ sirs. I’m the world’s greatest detective.”

Johann and Avi laughed at that, but in a way that wasn’t patronizing at all, and Angus smiled a little unsurely at the pair of them. “Full stop, huh?” Johann asked, still sounding kind of droopy. Like Jenkins, but more sincere. Warmer. “That’s cool. I’m kind of the greatest musician ever?”

Avi nodded seriously. “That’s true. We can listen to his album when we get home.”

“Why wait?” Johann shrugged, lifting the guitar and starting to strum at it gently. 

Sighing a little, Avi stood and patted his shoulder. “Next time. We gotta head home. Little guy’s nose is starting to run from the cold.” 

Angus frowned and sniffled, trying to look dignified. He didn’t think it really worked, since Avi pulled his scarf off and wrapped it around him. “I can stay and listen, sir! Or maybe Mr. Johann can come back with us and play at home!”

“Nah, you guys should get home,” Johann agreed. “I’ll see you next time you come back to play soccer. You’re gonna come back, right?”

Angus looked up at Avi, who nodded, and nearly knocked his hat off with the force of his own agreement. “Yeah! It was really fun. I’ll see you next time?”

Johann agreed that next time he would play for them and bid them both goodbye. On the way home, Angus told Avi about the game, which he very politely didn’t remind him that he had just watched. Avi stopped at a Starbucks for coffee and insisted that Angus get something. The hot chocolate was not as good as Taako made before. He got three more drinks to go and they kept going. 

“Hey, Angus?” Avi asked when the house was in sight. “I know you already know, like… everything or whatever, but if you wanted to go to school or whatever, I bet Ren would get you into one around here. Maybe not public school, but there’s a couple of private schools. Or, you know, there’s after school programs? You don’t have to go to school to go to those, I think.”

Angus didn’t reply for a few moments, deciding how to reply to that. They were closing in on the gates, Carrey and Killian waving from the booth. 

“I like soccer,” he said finally. 

“Yeah?”

He nodded. “Maybe there’ll be a team I can join in the spring.”

Avi grinned. “We’ll keep an eye out,” he agreed, pausing at the booth to hand two of the coffees off to the women there before they went along their way. “And if you think of anything else you wanna do, let me know, okay? Ren can do it. Tutors or whatever. I bet she could even get you into the high school if you wanted to go.”

The high school sounded like a pretty bad idea to him. He was pretty small and that seemed like a place where he would get picked on. Maybe a homeschool course. “I’ll think about it,” he agreed, scooting inside and taking off both scarves - Avi’s and then his own. 

As they hung their coats and Avi went to find Ren and deliver their last coffee, Angus thought again about Taako and Lup. Avi wanted him to have hobbies. He wanted him to make friends. Unfortunately, he already had a hobby - or, more like a job, and this case had started before any of that. He had opened it and he wasn’t going to close it just so he could go be a kid. (Although he was going to try and figure out how to do both things at once.)

The next obvious steps were to investigate either the library or the sitting room. Avi had told him before he would help him look into the library, or at least go with him, but there was something… unsettling about taking Avi for investigating. He was sweet, and he was caring, but Angus didn’t know if he’d know what to do if things went sideways. He didn’t think he’d be much help if he couldn’t figure something out. Next time he was gone, he’d have to ask Carrey or Killian to come with him. They would know what to do. And maybe, just maybe, they could get whatever -  _ whoever _ was in the sitting room to show themselves again. 

Following after him, Angus made his way through the house to the dining room, where he could hear the housekeeper and his personal babysitter talking. As soon as he entered, though, his eyes fell to the book sitting in front of his usual seat. 

“Oh, Angus, I meant to ask. Did you leave this out?” Ren asked, seeming unfettered. “We try not to take the old books from the library, you know. Your grandfather used t’get real bothered by it, so they stay in there.”

He had not, in fact, brought that book out. Angus hadn’t been back toward the back of the library, with the old books, in a few days. He hadn’t really investigated anything new in there for a while. 

Right there, right in front of his chair, though. There was a book, bound in brown with a stamped gold title. 

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, a little breathless again. Stepping closer slowly, carefully, he peered at the cover to read the letters on the front. 

_ IPRE _ .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am WEAK for Ango learning to be a child. It's my THING. This chapter was kind of a reprieve, sort of a break for Angus since everything is happening Very Quickly for a very small boyo. We're jumping back in like a fucking cannonball next round! 
> 
> Again, thank you all so much for your kind comments and wonderful theories god the theories are making my head swirl it's so fun to hear what you all think. Your support is making this a lot easier to keep going and keep writing.

**Author's Note:**

> Yell at me on twitter about TAZ! I need to follow more TAZ twitters!! @dragonosaurus
> 
> Also please leave some comments to encourage me to keep it up! This is the first time I've done a multichapter like this and I'm super nervous! :D
> 
> [EDIT] Hey all I'm so sorry but I had a death in the family this past week and then a Nightmare Family Function following it. Writing has been a little spotty for me, but chapter 4 is definitely coming!! Sorry for the delay guys. Please stick with me!


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